Today, the local central coast television station KSBW aired their weekly editorial. It took my breath away. Not for brilliance, eloquence or anything like that. But because it was so refreshingly logical and agreed so closely with ideas I had been discussing with Steve in the time since Prop 8 passed.
I encourage those with the time (it’s short, I promise) to take a look at it: http://www.ksbw.com/asseenon/17982623/detail.html
Marriage seems to be a word loaded with religious connotations, though it is clearly not a religious union in the eyes of the government since atheists can easily get married. Maybe the solution is to take the word out of it. Let the religious keep the word “marriage” for themselves, and let consenting adults who want to form families have their rights.
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Nah, way too logical. And it doesn't do anything to PROTECT traditional marriage which would probably wither and die since it's the government sanctioned union that has all the benefits tied to it. So we'd have the same split - the Yes on 8'ers would be against it while the No on 8'ers would vote for it in droves.
I believe, by the way, that this is the situation in many European countries. At least the governments do not recognize marriages in Mormon temples so Mormon couples go there after the civil ceremony.
I knew that was the case in Argentina (e.g. the government does not recognize any religious ceremony as marriage so everyone must get married civily then if they want a religious ceremony they go to their church)but did not know that was the case for many European countries.
I like the idea. I like it a lot. Where can I get my yard sign?
Brazil allows churches to perform civil marriages if they like, but they have to be in public meetings. (At least that was the case circa 1994.)
Personally, I think an easier path would be to simply open up domestic partnerships to straight couples. It is much harder to mount an argument against that especially when many religions have (grudgingly) adopted the notion that gays should have equal civil rights as long as it isn't "marriage".
Over time the difference would be lessened for beaurocratic simplicity. You would go to the register to get a marriage/civil union license and the difference would be a check mark. You could even leave it up to the officent to check which it is. Then the marriage / civil union difference would not be a government issue, but a decision made by the couple and their religious/secular leader.
My understanding was of the 8 (of which California is one) states that allow domestic partnerships some of them allowed straight coupoles to register as domestic couples. I thought California was one of them, but maybe it was Florida.
Straight couples in California can only register as domestic partners if one or both of them is over 62. It's not a choice straight couples actually have in California to not get married if they want those rights.
So what it looks like is we would just need to change that law to not have an age limit which should be a lot easier than starting from scratch.
Well, you could do that, but you'd still need some tweaks. Domestic partnerships are not equal to marriages. They are not recognized by the federal government, so things like estate taxes are still a problem (not to mention the pain it is to do their individual tax returns, since you have to file married in CA and single for the feds). If they were adjusted to include all of the rights of marriages, that would be a very workable solution.
Maybe with Obama as Pres. and such a large majority of Democrats in congress the Feds will change their law to tax marriages and domestic partnerships the same.
I just read an article that I thought was quite interesting about what the Bible says about gay marriage: http://www.newsweek.com/id/172653?gt1=43002
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